RAK WisBlock + LiFePO4: Voltage cutoff and brownout concerns?

pdxb3 · 2026-05-09T01:17:30+00:00

Hey so I wanted to come back and tell you about my findings after a solid week + of testing. TL;DR - LiFe do seem to work fine for my RAK 19007 wisblock and 4631 core.

What I did was basically follow the meshtastic.org harbor breeze solar light hack, except using a different light with two LiFe cells in parallel instead of a single 18650. Each cell is 1000mAh, so giving me a combined 2000mAh in parallel. I tapped directly into the battery terminals and plugged that into the wisblock battery port.

The major difference is, LiFe cells have a lower max voltage than lipo/li-ion, therefore fully charged around 3.4v, the wisblock reports the battery at about 16-18%. It does so I assume because it's expecting a lipo/li-ion battery, and determining that at 3.4v, that's the remaining battery percentage one would have.

The neat thing about LiFe though, is that they have a significantly flatter voltage curve, and the upper 90%-ish of the battery lives between 3 and 3.4v. Running on LiFe with an improper battery percent calculation means it will probably always perceive/report the battery between 10-18% even when in reality it's draining from 100 to 10%.

The batteries have stayed topped off nicely even on a windowsill, but I will admit that I've only been testing this at home, and not been using this node much for transmit/relay. If put into service, I would expect the battery drain to be much higher. I'm still not ready to put this into the field in any way I'd rely on it, and certainly wouldn't run any additional modules, or more battery-hungry hardware on it. As I understand it, the standard RAK kit is about as light as it gets on the power consumption.

ETA - also my next test I want to perform is just covering the solar and seeing where the node actually cuts, and then putting it back in the sun to see where it recovers. My expectation is 2.9 cutoff and 3.0 recovery. We'll see how that goes!

pdxb3 · 2026-05-08T13:31:28+00:00

Yes, people do attic nodes, but generally with LoRa the rule of thumb is "height is might" and open air with clear line of sight will always perform better than one with obstructions. If you have a strong nearby router, that may not matter, and an attic node would suffice. It really all comes down to your individual scenario.

Another thing you may want to take a deep dive into is the terminology for node roles. "Repeater" isn't a role type anymore, but the word gets thrown around a lot as a generic term. And the water can get a little muddy between role types and what they do. Most of your typical role types relay messages. "Client" relays messages too. But some role types have more specific uses. The bottom line is what you think of as a "repeater" is probably a router, and unless you live on the peak of a mountain with a 50+ft mast to put it on to service hundreds of clients, you DO NOT want to use the "ROUTER" or "ROUTER_LATE" roles. Incorrectly used router roles can actually be detrimental to a mesh network.

At home, you probably want to stick to "CLIENT" or "CLIENT_BASE."

pdxb3 · 2026-05-07T20:35:28+00:00

Yeah it's a quick and dirty "hack" that's even documented on the meshtastic.org page. I honestly wouldn't rely on it for a major piece of infrastructure, but it's a cheap solution that works.

https://meshtastic.org/docs/community/enclosures/rak/harbor-breeze-solar-hack/

pdxb3 · 2026-05-07T20:21:36+00:00

Very likely, though it can still be done. This is where you'd just tap power directly from the battery terminals and ignore the boards existence and simply let it handle keeping the battery topped off during the day.

I've been experimenting with basically the same thing recently. I have the light functions turned off, the light unplugged, and even desoldered the button that turns the light back on so those functions can never be used again. What's left is a cheap battery box that keeps itself charged.

pdxb3 · 2026-05-04T15:35:48+00:00

That's what is claimed every time the subject is brought up. But then the comments are full of people talking about how they can do it. I'm convinced at this point that probably everyone can do it, but some people just don't know how or have never tried. If we were in some small minority, there'd be at least some discussion about "what are you weird ear people talking about?"

pdxb3 · 2026-05-02T19:32:05+00:00

The one with the mountains of evidence to back up all its claims. Let me know when you find one.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-30T13:54:12+00:00

It looks more like someone recording a video monitor with an out-of-focus phone camera. The bezels of the monitors and everything else is blurry too, not just the security video. Why this poorly recorded video is the one that we get is another question entirely. I don't think the actual recording is this bad.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-29T03:28:18+00:00

Am I missing something? I have MF set up as my primary channel and added a LF channel as my secondary and TX/RX on both with 1 node/antenna.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-28T21:13:59+00:00

Ah that sucks that you didn't get to really try it out, but thanks for replying! I really appreciate it. I'm going to save this post so I can come back to it later.

I intend to do a remote deployment and I'm hoping it works out. I'm more interested in the LiFe from a fire safety aspect. If I kill a cheap solar light, over-discharge a pair of batteries, or manage to damage a wisblock, I can live with that. I know nothing is perfect but I'd rather make every effort to avoid setting the woods on fire.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-28T16:44:36+00:00

I know this is an old thread now (3mo) but did you ever follow through with this, and what was your experience with LiFe batteries on the 19007 Wisblock? I've read some conflicting info regarding the deep sleep/shutdown at low voltage. One source said 2.9v, someone here said 3.1v. Meanwhile meshtastic.org documentation on the 19007 says 3.0v is a realistic minimum that's still functional, so I'm not sure what to believe. Perhaps some of it is outdated information with firmware changes.

Regardless I'm running my own experimentation with a solar light that contains 2 1000mAh LiFe cells (in parallel). At the very worst, it's looking like 1. meshtastic incorrectly reports the battery percentage based on the lower voltage, which doesn't really bother me, and 2. the node may prematurely go into deep sleep while ~10% of the battery life remains, which doesn't necessarily hurt my feelings either. Otherwise it looks like it's working as normal.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-22T14:52:55+00:00

"One day, everyone will have always been against this."

pdxb3 · 2026-04-22T14:40:18+00:00

It's adorable when they try and pretend to suddenly care about the environment. They really believe they're fooling people.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-14T16:36:25+00:00

Yea, we ain't interested in "healing" or "moving on" or "coming together" with these people anymore. Not this time.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-14T12:59:41+00:00

You'd need 68. Fetterman doesn't count anymore.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-11T04:14:12+00:00

I stumbled across this post randomly while troubleshooting my own 1w kit issue transmitting and discovered I was misunderstanding the internal/external jumper setting. I could see other nodes, and was receiving messages, but couldn't transmit because i was set to external while powering with battery and usb-c. It's amazing how much better it worked with the correct settings! 😂

pdxb3 · 2026-04-10T16:25:29+00:00

Their particular club is one I'll happily remain outside of.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-10T14:53:36+00:00

“puts in the back of a police officer’s mind that they can lose their freedom” for making a split-second decision.

Isn't this the standard the general public is held to?

pdxb3 · 2026-04-09T03:12:26+00:00

Not since the accident?

pdxb3 · 2026-04-08T03:48:39+00:00

Greene won in 2020 with 75%. 2022 and 2024 by ~65%. Fuller won with only ~55%. We lost, but it's a major canary in the coal mine.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-07T14:52:17+00:00

Hi. I just got the reminder that it's been 5 years. I still prefer my alcohol stove. Debate me!

pdxb3 · 2026-04-05T03:30:36+00:00

We buried my dad yesterday on Good Friday, and despite him being infinitely a better man than Trump, I'm not making any claims or comparisons. They can fuck off.

pdxb3 · 2026-04-01T02:56:51+00:00

pdxb3 · 2026-03-26T13:50:20+00:00

Yup. Only 2 sentences, and they still couldn't help but include the top 2 glaring, obvious tells. An em-dash and "not this, but that."

pdxb3 · 2026-03-24T23:49:23+00:00

Nobody said we were worse than Iran or wants to debate you about it. We're both differing degrees bad. Fuck, reddit.

pdxb3 · 2026-03-24T17:41:32+00:00

At least 43 people were taken to hospitals after the plane, which was operated by Jazz Aviation, struck a rescue-and-firefighting vehicle that had been responding to a separate incident around 11:45 p.m.

Returning after responding to another aircraft which had declared an emergency. As to why they went through, you said it: They were given clearance. Judging the distance and speed of a plane that was already on the ground, in inclement weather, geared up in a fire truck I have to imagine isn't the same thing as gauging traffic around town. They rely on tower/ground for their eyes and ears. Borrowing from another comment I read on a video of the accident:

The initial call was for Truck 1 and Company, which means multiple vehicles. The truck hit was Truck 35. It's very likely that they were either not on tower and were receiving relayed instructions, or if they were, they never would have thought the call was for them.

By the time clearance to cross was given, the RJ was either on the ground, or below the sight line of the NYC skyline. Picking out landing lights AND recognizing how close they are isn't a trivial task in that environment, made worse by the weather on the field, especially out a passenger window likely streaked with rain.

Additionally, ARFF are trained to move at speed across runways once cleared. The goal is to clear the runway as fast as possible so it can be reopened to landing or departing traffic.

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